Charlie M.

Gulak was great. Poor Cedric. How he is still trapped in this nightmare? Neville and Tozawa should have a crazy match.

If only she was from Boston, she could start comparing herself to Tom Brady. Late round draft picks, everyone counted them out, finally got their chance and won championships in completely legitimate ways with no controversy whatsoever. Ellsworth could compare himself to Gisele. It would be great heat.

Dijak vs WALTER would be fine too.

Was there a rule change? Are there two basketballs now?

Yeah that was a great one. Byron is a strange dude.

Ratings were down so they devised a way to try and pop a number. That's all it was.

Talking Smack was so good this week. I loved how The Usos were having fun with DB and then brought up their new foolproof strategy, "When we're losing, we just leave." And Daniel Bryan isn't so much mad at them as he's disappointed that his cool friends would do such a thing.

They actually made Carmella into a star over the past two weeks after a year of crickets. She did a great job again on her promo and her reactions during the match were really good. It seems like she'll be programmed with Becky for awhile so hopefully that helps her improve in the ring. I'm glad the Lana wrestler experiment is over and they didn't mess around. Naomi crushed her like she should. Fashion Vice was great again. I feel like The Usos are totally outshining New Day in their feud. Honey, Austin, I love you but time for some new material, honey. Orton and Jinder have had two shockingly good matches but I feel like WWE's asking too much from Randy to get a good Punjabi Prison Match out of him. That seems impossible.

I wish they'd just put Alexa and Nia together as an act. They've pretty much done the same segment 5 times now where Alexa sucks up to her, Nia considers it and then shoots it down.

Lesnar/Joe just keeps getting better. That's rare for a WWE feud that starts with a hot angle. I thought the Gauntlet Match was pretty good. It was Nia's best outing on the main roster for sure. I still don't really care about anyone in the division on RAW, though. Hoping Alexa and Sasha can change that with a good feud. As much as I'm enjoying classic Goldust, it's asking a lot of your audience to boo a beloved nostalgia act. I'm pleased the Roman/Strowman feud is back on. Easily one of the highlights of 2017 RAW.

Selanne and Kariya were HOF level talents. Andreychuk and Recchi? They've got numbers but neither really stands out to me as ever being among the best players in the league.

The edibles kicked in too quickly.

Pleased with the Canucks pick. Also pleased with the impending overhaul of the scouting department. It's long overdue.

I hope Steve keeps watching the current product and doing these Thursday shows. Had some great insight on MITB, RAW and Smackdown this week because he's not afraid to be critical of guys but makes sure to do it in a constructive way.

It was basically the same unscripted promo she cut on Youtube after the match. Someone must have seen it and said "hey just do that again."

Talking Smack was excellent. Carmella crying fake tears. Daniel Bryan kissing a skeleton. New Day getting on Renee's case for a bad question. WWE DADS talkin' poop.

They're doing it this way because Smackdown's ratings have been poor the last few weeks. Judging by the reaction to Carmella, the negative reaction was good heat. It actually got her over. I think if they have her win again, it could really solidify her. Or they just let Becky finally get her big win and people pat themselves on the back for being part of history and whatnot.

Carmella did a great job in her promo to start the show. So much so that I'm hoping they just have her win again next week unless they have some other big angle planned. They needed something for ratings and turned to the Women's Division on Smackdown. It speaks pretty highly of what they think of it. Nakamura vs Ziggler was way better than their PPV match. I liked Orton going crazy at the end of the show and the Singh Brothers bumping like crazy. Not really sure what to think about Chad Gable coming back like that. They'll probably do it again next week with Jason Jordan vs. Kevin Owens but then what? Harper vs Jinder wasn't that bad all things considered. Corbin looks like a doofus with the case.

Has Dwight played for more teams than Shaq yet?

This is one of my favourite times of the year. So many wild rumours that probably won't happen.

Not sure if I buy that Meltzer speculation. Maryse might just have other projects going on and needs some time off.

I'd rather go to the performance center than wrestle in some of these sketchy places and deal with the crap that I'm sure most indie women's wrestlers do.

All the commercials hyping Smackdown were built around the women's storyline. People may not like the finish but they're still being treated like a huge part of the show. On RAW? Well, there's certain limitations that I think they're going to struggle to overcome. You're not going to put Alexa out there in 10-15 minute matches and you shouldn't put Bayley or Sasha out there doing any sort of promos. It's tough.

I would've closed the show with Orton/Jinder. At least then people might have thought that Orton could win and lose to Corbin.

Carmella bragging about how she won the historic first women's MITB all by herself while Ellsworth smugly smiles in the background is an instant heat getter. Yeah, she's not that good in the ring yet but neither is Alexa on RAW. At least they're not expecting Carmella to carry matches. She'll just have the briefcase and get some heat for a long time and maybe at some point she'll be used as a transitional champion. To me, this is the same as if you had a men's one and Maryse won it for Miz. It would be great heat. Since WWE is such a regressive company, there's like a hundred of these "first ever historic women's matches" for them to do. Using one to try and elevate someone isn't a bad thing.